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Design, Development, and Evaluation of an Online Statistics Course for Educational Technology Doctoral Students: a Design and Development Case

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Abstract

The purpose of this design and development case is to document the design, development, and evaluation of a statistics course tailored for educational technology doctoral students in an online program. The course is intended to prepare online doctoral students to both consume and produce quantitative research in the field of educational technology using relevant and authentic learning experiences. This paper first outlined the course features used to engage students in the learning materials. Twenty doctoral students enrolled in this online statistics course provided relevant data on three occasions (pre-, mid-, and post-surveys) during a 16-week academic semester. Drawing from both quantitative and qualitative data sources, this paper demonstrates that the use of authentic and relevant datasets based on peer-reviewed publications from the field of educational technology coupled with engaging practice assignments, designed for students to exercise the use of various statistical techniques using SPSS, was a successful strategy. Students found learning about analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) along with factorial and repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) in the same module overwhelming. Results showed that students’ level of statistics anxiety significantly decreased in three key areas. The discussion provides interpretations of the findings as well as our lessons learned.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Teaching and Learning, College of Education, University of Florida, 2423 Norman Hall, PO BOX 117048, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Albert D. Ritzhaupt, Natercia Valle & Max Sommer

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  1. Albert D. Ritzhaupt
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  2. Natercia Valle
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  3. Max Sommer
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Correspondence to Albert D. Ritzhaupt.

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There are no potential conflicts of interest in this research. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This research involved human participants and was approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) prior to data collection. Ethical conduct was executed in all phases of the present research study.

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Ritzhaupt, A.D., Valle, N. & Sommer, M. Design, Development, and Evaluation of an Online Statistics Course for Educational Technology Doctoral Students: a Design and Development Case. J Form Des Learn 4, 119–135 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41686-020-00051-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41686-020-00051-5

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